Found in a future newspaper:
Wiffles for Everyone
NEW YORK TIMES, 26 April 2015
Thom Whalen, Guest Editor
The world passed a milestone last month. Intel announced that more computing power is now devoted to fingerprint recognition than to all other computer applications combined, including word processing and computer games.
Since the development of the wireless fingerprint lock by RIM, Inc. three years ago, the "wiffles", as they are known, have become ubiquitous in industrialized countries. Fingerprints are required to access buildings, rooms within buildings, automobiles, and locked cabinets of all kinds. It is no longer possible to buy a litre of milk or ride bus without leaving your fingerprint behind. The latest fad is for young singles to carry portable wiffles so they can exchange prints with new acquaintances before deciding "to date or not to date."
RIM also noted that the vast majority of wireless traffic on IPVX is the 128 byte fingerprint codes. "They are small packets, but there are a heck of a lot of them," the CEO of RIM said. Wiffles are not only fueling the red-hot semiconductor market, but they are now the major driver behind the proliferation of wireless networking.
But people are divided about whether this is a good thing or not. Michael Moore, the veteran documentarist and California senator, has expressed concern that too many police officers, from FBI special agents to every local sheriff´s deputy, have their fingerprints registered for the infamous "free pass". He suggests that the Supreme Court, still strongly conservative after the three Bush administrations, erred in ruling that the "free pass" fingerprint system protects people from illegal search because "the law can always identify and prosecute any police officer who has mis-used his ´free pass´ authority." Senator Moore claims that judges have been much more willing to sign post-hoc search warrants once the search has already been completed than they were to sign traditional search warrants. He cites statistics showing a 5000% increase in search warrants issued from ten years ago.
The War Amps organization has been equally vocal in criticizing the proliferation of wiffles. "It is highly discriminatory that many of our members now have to get assistance for almost everything they do." Their media spokesperson claims, "It is technologically possible to develop assistive devices and the law should demand it." Homeland security experts disagree. Head of homeland security, Dick Cheney, says that any assistive device that allows double amputees to circumvent wiffles could fall into the wrong hands and give terrorists a free pass to all of America. "I feel for people with no hands," he said, "But America´s need for security is more important than the convenience of any small minority." The Supreme Court agreed in their unanimous decision against Roawan v New York last year.
The only remaining device not protected by wiffles are firearms. The National Rifle Association has lobbied vociferously and effectively against installing wiffles into handguns or rifles, arguing that the right to bear arms would be sharply infringed if person was unable to fire any gun he wished. "How can I protect my home from a criminal if I cannot wrestle his gun away from him and shoot him with it?" NRA President for Life, Charlton Heston, asked from his life support bed. "They can fingerprint my gun with my cold dead hand!" The NRA has also argued that the right to bear arms would be compromised if gun owners could be identified by their guns. "Many people would feel inhibited about buying and carrying firearms if they knew that their identity was permanently associated with their weapon," the NRA legal council argued before the Supreme Court last May. The majority of judges agreed with the NRA, so firearms will remain wiffle-free for the foreseeable future.